WoAdWriMo: Tools of the Trade.

You’ve decided to build an adventure for WoAdWriMo.

Once you start writing an adventure that other people may see, you realize quickly that it’s not trivial.  Your home games run off sketchy notes and your own brainpower.  When someone reads your adventure, they don’t have your brain –I know this because I just checked.  Your job in publishing adventures for others is not only to craft the adventure but to convey to others your cool idea in a way that will mostly survive the transition from your mind to a reader you have never met.  You’ve read adventures before, so you know how they convey the information to GMs — they use maps, visuals, and proper structuring.  So that’s what your going to do.  People who publish adventures professionally often have a team of people to provide them the props and visuals they need.  How are you going to compete with that?

You can start with the tools that follow. The following are a collection of tools I use in adventure making (even my home games) that help me break through the tedious, required bits most easily, and bring my focus back to creative work.

The Journal or Google Notebook. 

I obsess over keeping notes for my game or preparing for it.  I like having a singular digital place that leaves information right where I need it –at my fingertips. 

I use the Journal –it’s fully functioned, organizes your notes as simply or fully as you want.  I’ve designed game systems within it easily.  Drawbacks?  Not free.  You can get a forty-five day trial, which should last you long enough to get through WoAdWriMo, though. Also, the Journal is Windows-only.

Google Notebook serves much the same function, though I like the interface on The Journal better, Google Notebook is free and multi-platform.

Both of these are superior to a standard word-processor package because they allow you to easily break down thought into modules and pieces.  You can reassemble within the programs or a word processor, which I probably will do later.  In the middle of writing an adventure though, there multiple threads to balance and manage.  Software that mimics that non-linear structure is a natural fit for this process.

Campaign Cartographer

Wow.  I’m not telling anyone who’s used the program anything that they didn’t know, but this is a great mapmaking program.  I like to use it mostly for making overland maps and cities.  Acquiring the knack for that took me one evening of experimentation.  Producing dungeon maps is more laborious I think, but producing maps for game use or as props is easy.

Campaign Cartographer isn’t cheap though.  If you are pressed for time and can’t spare the evening just to learn the program, you also might want to pass.

You invest in Campaign Cartographer and it rewards you with professional-esque maps.  Otherwise, you want…

Scanner and Photoshop/GIMP. 

Draw it out, scan it in, edit and color with one of the aforementioned image editors.  Getting decent with either package is not trivial, but skills with any of these programs is getting so common that many gamers already have them. 

Unless you have Photoshop through work, you’ll most likely be going with GIMP, which is free.

Dungeon Generators

You need to make a dungeon for a 4th edition adventure most likely, and starting with a framework that you tweak takes less time the building one from scratch. Random Dungeon Generators give you that framework. The two I use:

Jamis Buck’s Dungeon Generator

A 3rd ed classic.  Not fancy on the display, but fills the rooms with objects to jumpstart your thoughts.

Skeleton Key’s Dungeon Generator

Easy way to get good looking dungeons.  A little slow, but worth it.

4th edition Monster Manual PDF

Wizards just released DRM-free digital versions of the core books.  While I own the hard-covers, having digital copies of the monster manual in particular saves me time typing as I can open the PDF, and use image-editing software to yank out the monster block to paste in my adventure document.  It’s a huge time-saver.

iTunes

Not specific to RPG Adventure Writing, but I need my tunes!  I like moody indie hip-hop (Aesop Rock, Illogic, Sonic Sum, and Micranots are in heavy rotation) or episodes of Hearts of Space get preference here.  Anything that brings intensity without drawing my attention to words or particular sound is great.  Set the mood, don’t get sucked in to overly energetic tracks.

What tools are you using to build your WoAdWriMo adventure?  I’d love to know.

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